Research to be published in January’s edition of the Journal of Athletic Training suggests that at the high-school level, at least, concussion symptoms may differ according to gender. The CDC-funded study covered reports of 812 sports concussions in nine different sports during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 academic years. It found no gender difference between the raw number of symptom reported, nor in the time it took for the symptoms to resolve (71% of the athletes said it took three days or less) and the athlete to return to the field (64% were back playing by nine days after the injury).

But the types of symptoms were different. During the first year of the study, only the primary symptom was recorded. It was most often headache for both sexes, but males were more likely to report amnesia and confusion or disorientation than their female counterparts.

Data collection software changed in the second year of the study, allowing for the recording of all symptoms — not just the primary one. In that period, headache was still the most commonly cited symptom for both genders, and once again men reported amnesia and confusion more often than women.

Women, for their part, were more likely to report drowsiness and noise sensitivity than were men.

There were some limitations — namely, there was no uniform definition of concussion used by the athletic trainers who recorded the injuries, and an injury was only recorded if the trainer was aware of it.

But the study authors write that their findings should keep athletic trainers attuned to the presence of symptoms more commonly linked to concussions in females. If they’re present, trainers “should initially associate these types of symptoms with a potential concussion and should withhold an athlete from contact activity until the symptoms subside,” they write.